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Nothing worth doing is ever easy, but Austin Public Library Director Julie Clinefelter probably wouldn’t mind at least one easy aspect to the new library remodel.

Even the ground-breaking in November last year was challenging.

“It was crazy and I remember when [Joseph Company’s] Carter Wagner called … he was like ‘I think we’re going to break ground. Do you want do a groundbreaking [ceremony]?’” Clinefelter said. “So I’m Googling how to do a groundbreaking. I had a couple weeks … if people asked me questions, who knows what my answers were.”

Nevertheless, work is progressing on the around $1,551,000 million project that has been six years in the making and filled with delays and surprise price hikes in construction costs.

Clinefelter said they hope to have all work done by late spring of this year.

When work is completed the library will have a remodeled service desk, a large project room added to the west side of the building with a connecting outdoor porch area.

There will also be two study rooms and a 12-person conference room along the windows as well as complete remodels of the bathrooms, more storage and enhanced lighting.

On the exterior an awning will be placed over the employee entrance on the east side. The only thing the library ended up having to drop was a proposed awning over the book drop on the front of the building, which was actually a fairly new addition to the plan.

All of this had its roots in 2017, when Clinefelter was hired, complete with a challenge right out of the gates.

“One of the first things I remember the Library Board telling me was that they wanted to work on a strategic plan and they had been given an anonymous donation,” she said. “They wanted to know what I thought we should do about it.”

A daunting challenge, but Clinefelter began work on assessing what both employees and the public thought the library should have, including cosmetic changes and functionality.

It was part of the board’s desire for Clinefelter to build a strategic plan for the library using the $25,000 donation as a base.

“Looking back now, that first donation really kicked off this whole project,” Clinefelter said.

Early conversations weren’t specific to what the library is doing this year, but the early foundations were there, including an expanded children’s area.

Those conversations also settled on an 2021 target because this particular library would be 25 years old.

What happened next is almost predictable with anything at this point.

“Our fundraising was all supposed to happen before the construction,” Clinefelter said. “We had all the documents done. Our big launch for our fundraiser was Friday, March 20, 2020.”

That same week, the state was shut down because of the building COVID -19 pandemic.

“At the time I thought, ‘okay, we’ll be shut down for only a month.’ I really thought that,” Clinefelter said. “I was kind of excited to have a couple of weeks where we could get things organized  in the library without patrons in the building.”

The project stalemate, like so many things, became protracted until the Library Board met with Clinefelter to see where the project stood. Even though they were rare during the pandemic, the delay in the project turned out to be something of a silver lining.

At around the time the library board was inquiring on the project status, Clinefelter happened upon a grant from the Minnesota Department of Health.

“If we hadn’t done all of that I don’t think I would have applied for the grant because we knew what we needed,” Clinefelter said. “We found out that we got the grant three days before the actual anniversary celebration in June. Most of the things we wanted to do, COVID made those things more important.”

With the state opening up again, planning picked back up again. The city became involved and things looked well on their way, except the effects of the pandemic were still being felt.

The country began feeling the strain of supply chain issues and inflation was becoming more and more a part of daily life for Americans.

The library’s project would not go untouched. At the time, estimates for the entire project hovered around $680,000, however, things would take a sudden turn upwards.

“I’m looking at the bids and I’m like, ‘I don’t understand,’” Clinefelter said. “What are those numbers? It was so much more.”

The initial estimate had climbed by $1 million, leaving the project short by around $700,000. While there were some pots from which to draw from, Clinefelter said she thought it meant the end of the project.

“I had a 48-hour period where I thought, ‘we’re done,” she said. “I completely screwed this up. I don’t know what I had missed.”

She laid out the situation to the board as well as options, options that she took to the City Council during an October work session.

There were two options: scrap the project or begin cutting the project, however, Clinefelter on the spur of the moment threw out a third option that included the city ponying up funds for the project to keep it on track.

“It was a bizarre evening,” she quipped.

The city council agreed to fill in the rest of the $700,000 required, with the provision that the library pay back $100,000 of the money. Even still, Clinefelter wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened.

“I was afraid they would change their mind a little bit,” Clinefelter said

The initial estimate had climbed by $1 million, leaving the project short by around $700,000. While there were some pots from which to draw from, Clinefelter said she thought it meant the end of the project.

“I had a 48-hour period where I thought, ‘we’re done,” she said. “I completely screwed this up. I don’t know what I had missed.”

She laid out the situation to the board as well as options, options that she took to the City Council during an October work session.

There were two options: scrap the project or begin cutting the project, however, Clinefelter on the spur of the moment threw out a third option that included the city ponying up funds for the project to keep it on track.

“It was a bizarre evening,” she quipped.

The city council agreed to fill in the rest of the $700,000 required, with the provision that the library pay back $100,000 of the money. Still, Clinefelter wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened.

“I was afraid they would change their mind a little bit,” Clinefelter said and joked: “I have to get out of here, quick.”

And just like that, work began progressing at a much quicker pace. The groundbreaking was held just two weeks later on a fairly mild and bright November morning, completely contrasting everything that came before.

When everything is completed, Clinefelter and the board envisions a library that is more than just a place to get books. In a lot of ways, it’s expected to be something of a community center that serves an evolved function in today’s society.

Yes, it will still be primarily about books, but people will use it as a place to gather for meetings and special programming for both children and adults.

Clinefelter used a quote she had picked up to explain the library’s growing role: “Libraries are the marriage of practicality and inspiration.”

It’s also a story of a community that supports the library, both among its citizens as well as the city.

“We are very lucky in this community to have the support we have  and have a community that understands the importance,” Clinefelter said. “We haven’t always, as a profession, done a good job explaining what we do, but here they seem to instinctively know.”

“The community is very supportive and I think it’s a reflection of our values and what’s important to us,” she added.